Thursday, July 5, 2007

7/5/07 - Hey there, Hi there, happy forth of July, well i guess its the fifth now but w/e. Today I come today bringing very good news, the rumors have come true, The Smashing Pumpkins finally reunited, well, sort of. Anywho, the album leaked on 6/30/07, however, I just recently gave it a listen today, well quite a few listens. I think I was on some type of pumpkins high due to all the hype, or something of that nature. The album is titled "Zeitgeist", which as everyone clearly knows, means "the spirit of the age" in the lovely language of German... Zeitgeist is the first album SP have put out since the year 2000, and they have been greatly missed. But, just like anything else, whenever something or someone comes back from a hiatus there will be an incredible amount of doubters and negative attitudes. Being a casual pumpkins fan I figured I would set aside all their previous work and give the album and the new band members a fighting chance to impress, and I gotta say, me likey. Its definitely a bit different than past efforts but still touches upon The Smashing Pumpkins everyone has come to know and love.

When reviewing an album I like to go through the track list and take a few notes so that I can easily track down what I did and did not like. I have to say that there is not much I didn't like but there are some things that defiantly stood out. The album opens up with the song "Doomsday Clock" which features the trademark of grundge-y layered guitars that made the pumpkins who they are today. At this point my expectations grew tremendously, as they should, I mean come on, Billy Corgan has been talking this up quite a bit. The album continues to impress through the dream pop single "Thats the Way (My Love Is)" which has been tagged as "Zwan-esque", which is, in my opinion, is not a bad thing at all. Then, at the number five spot, the listener gets what they really came for in "Tarantula", the first released single of the album. However, at this point in the album, Billy and friends throw the listener a bit of a curve ball with the mid-CD alt-punk epic "United States", in which wailing guitars take over during the 9:53 journey, and although new for the pumpkins, came off as a good surprise and happened to fit right into my listening style.

Overall, I really dig it. The "new" Smashing Pumpkins created a very well put together album that shouldn't disappoint old fans and should hopefully create new ones. Oh yeah! ...Here is the music video for the new single "Tarantula", check out Billy's cheesy costume, heh, pretty awesome. Enjoy :)